


i hide, you seek

by bokutoma



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Sibling Bonding, background jonmartim, based on the __ loves you twitter, for a tma fic about the stranger this is suprisingly soft, less than canon amounts of teeth and blood, like very vague lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24034045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: danny is not a new person. he is not danny. his wrist is blurry. there is something there."The thing is, Danny trusts his brother with every fiber of his being, false and otherwise. Tim has never been cruel, would never be. Still, every time he forgets something that he knows should be second nature to him, every time he goes a little bit wrong in the way that Nikola loves and he enjoys, he can't shake the feeling that his brother is disappointed. He is not the Danny that Tim lost, and he never will be; if he asks, if he's forgetting yet another thing that should be important to him, will his older brother make that face, the one that looks like he's halfway between hitting something and crying?"
Relationships: Danny Stoker & Tim Stoker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	i hide, you seek

**Author's Note:**

> based on the angsting we did yesterday on the ___ loves you twitter accounts (@dannystokerly and @timstkerlovesu)

Sometimes, when Danny looks at his wrist, it seems... blurry. Not in the way that blurs _should_ look (although that might be subjective), edges of skin indistinct, lines wavering. No, his skin is right where he and Nikola had determined it should be, stretched tight over not-bone and not-muscle, the faint scent of cloves and iron where he presses that arm to his nose. It's grounding, or it usually is. It would be if his wrist weren't so damn _blurry._

It's almost like there's something there, worming - bad choice of words - its way to the front of his mind with gentle, dreamlike persistence. There is nothing, though. There is nothing.

He used to have a tattoo on his right calf, though it's no longer there. A knot of balloons, each a different color, to represent the friends he had made during his brief stint as a street performer. He's talked to Nikola about getting it redone for the Circus of the Other: red for the ringmistress, two blue for Breekon and the former Hope, orange for the fire eater, and green for the contortionist.

"Why not yellow?" she has asked. "Orange and red are very similar, you know! I would _hate_ for anyone to get confused!"

Yellow hadn't belonged to any members of the circus, though. He didn't and still doesn't know _who_ is yellow, bright and warm as the sun, but it is not any of them.

They haven't found an artist willing to let both Danny and Nikola into their shop, though, and kidnapping for that reason is low on the list of priorities these days.

So it's not a tattoo. He doesn't remember having one there - unreliable though his memory is - but the one on his calf is gone, so any that might have been there must be as well. He used to draw on that wrist, he remembers, but stopped for some reason. Maybe it's an imprint, ink sunken into the flesh several layers deep.

It doesn't make sense, but what does?

With bitter iron on his tongue and sawdust on his fist, he decides to ask Tim.

Nikola and Tim do not get along, incomprehensible as that seems to him. His dearest friend and his older brother, the two most important people in his life, and they do not like each other! How very, very odd.

They are very different, though. Nikola is all bubbles, the exhilaration of a tightrope walk and the wonderfully buzzing danger of fire breathed in your face. She does not mind that he forgets half of who and what he was and is, and when he loses sight of which way is up and which way is down, that there _is_ an up and down, she laughs and laughs until he feels like laughing too. She is sharp, bright, all the dangerous things he does not know and loves.

Tim is a steady hand at his back, the relief of a blanket around the shoulders and a mug of hot chocolate with a mouth to drink it. He does not mind that he forgets half of who and what he was and is, and when he forgets which way is up and which way is down, that there _is_ an up and down, he tells him which is which and gives him a hug. He is soft, bright, all the wonderful things he knows and loves.

Tim does not like Nikola for reasons Danny can only halfway understand, and Nikola... He won't pretend he has ever had an inkling of anything she thinks other than her care for him, but there is animosity.

The thing is, Danny trusts his brother with every fiber of his being, false and otherwise. Tim has never been cruel, _would_ never be. Still, every time he forgets something that he knows should be second nature to him, every time he goes a little bit wrong in the way that Nikola loves and he enjoys, he can't shake the feeling that his brother is disappointed. He is not the Danny that Tim lost, and he never will be; if he asks, if he's forgetting yet another thing that should be important to him, will his older brother make that face, the one that looks like he's halfway between hitting something and crying?

Maybe Danny would too if the roles were reversed. That doesn't make him feel any better, though.

When he gets the chance, though, when Tim has the time... He will ask.

After all, his wrist is still so blurry.

* * *

Tim is flush with new love when Danny next sees him, and for a moment, he considers saying nothing. What is worth the risk of spoiling his brother's mood? Not Danny. Not his memory loss. Not the blur that itches and makes him taste stuffing and teeth.

Not. Danny.

Still, there must be a thread of the Beholding in him that ties him to Tim, antithesis to his very not-being though that is, because he has to ask. He must.

Tim makes him a mug of hot chocolate - only one of his new boyfriends has ever made tea that Danny likes - and sits him down, and Danny's tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. He wishes that it was literal. That would be an easy fix, after all.

"My wrist is blurry," he blurts out, none of his usual cheer in his voice.

Tim looks understandably confused.

"Sometimes I look at my wrist, and it seems blurry," he tries again. "Is that normal?"

Inexplicably, Tim's face softens from its careful composure. "Which wrist?" There is so much tenderness in his voice that it hurts.

"The left one." The confession feels like pulling teeth in the most literal sense. "I thought... I used to draw on that one, right?"

Tim looks like he's just been punched (like Danny did the punching). "The left one, huh?"

For a moment, they sit in silence, the warmth of the hot chocolate near scalding against his skin. Tim rubs his jaw, and this at least is familiar; he used to do that even before the circus took Danny in, when he thought the younger's new pursuits too dangerous.

Is Danny dangerous? Or does Tim think he's in danger? How does he say he's fine when he doesn't know what that means?

"That's the one you got tattooed," Tim finally says, flipping his hand over so the ink on his own shines starkly even in the dim light. "We got matching ones."

And even if there is no memory on his skin or in his head, _yang_ reaches out to him, one half of a whole. It makes sense, the idea of this being true.

Danny doesn't remember.

"I only remember having one tattoo," he says, flinching from his own words like they're plastic explosives on a finicky trigger. "Not one on my wrist. And that one isn't even there anymore."

 _I'm sorry_ , he doesn't say.

Tim has always been the better actor of the two of them. "Huh." He rubs his jaw again, but he is smiling, smiling, smiling. Danny knows what it looks like when a smile is wrong, but he won't call him on it. He likes this fragile protection too much to risk it. "We could always go and get yours redone, if you want."

Danny sings. It's what he _does_. Right now, though, his heart has never wanted to do so more.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on twitter @kingblaiddyd (or @dannystokerly !)


End file.
